Grounded in the personal narratives of twenty interracial couples with multiracial children, this volume uniquely explores interracial couples’ encounters with racism and discrimination, partner difference, family identity, and counseling and therapy. It intimately portrays how race, class, and gender shape relationship dynamics and a partner’s sense of belonging. Assessment tools and intervention techniques help professionals and scholars work effectively with multiracial families as they negotiate difference, resist familial and societal disapproval, and strive for increased intimacy. The book concludes with a discussion of interracial couples in cinema and literature, the sensationalization of multiracial relations in mass media, and how to further liberalize partner selection across racial borders.

Grounded in the personal narratives of twenty interracial couples with multiracial children, this volume uniquely explores interracial couples’ encounters with racism and discrimination, partner difference, family identity, and counseling and therapy. It intimately portrays how race, class, and gender shape relationship dynamics and a partner’s sense of belonging. Assessment tools and intervention techniques help professionals and scholars work effectively with multiracial families as they negotiate difference, resist familial and societal disapproval, and strive for increased intimacy. The book concludes with a discussion of interracial couples in cinema and literature, the sensationalization of multiracial relations in mass media, and how to further liberalize partner selection across racial borders.

This exciting new text on counseling African American couples outlines critical components to providing culturally-sensitive treatment. Built around a framework that examines African American couples’ issues as well as the specific contextual factors that can negatively impact their relationships, it: • Addresses threats to love and intimacy for Black couples • Provides culturally relevant, strengths-based approaches and assessment practices • Includes interesting case studies at the conclusion of each chapter that illustrate important concepts. The chapters span the current state of couple relationships; readers will find information for working with lesbians and gays in relationships, pastoral counseling, and intercultural Black couples. There is also a chapter for non-Black therapists who work with Black clients. Dispersed throughout the book are interviews with prominent African American couples’ experts: Dr. Chalandra Bryant, relationship expert Audrey B. Chapman, Dr. Daryl Rowe and Dr. Sandra Lyons-Rowe, and Dr. Thomas Parham. They provide personal insight on issues such as the strengths African Americans bring to relationships, their skills and struggles, and gender and class considerations. This must-read book will significantly help you and your clients.

How interracial couples in Brazil and the US navigate racial boundaries How do people understand and navigate being married to a person of a different race? Based on individual interviews with forty-seven black-white couples in two large, multicultural cities—Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro—Boundaries of Love explores how partners in these relationships ultimately reproduce, negotiate, and challenge the “us” versus “them” mentality of ethno-racial boundaries. By centering marriage, Chinyere Osuji reveals the family as a primary site for understanding the social construction of race. She challenges the naive but widespread belief that interracial couples and their children provide an antidote to racism in the twenty-first century, instead highlighting the complexities and contradictions of these relationships. Featuring black husbands with white wives as well as black wives with white husbands, Boundaries of Love sheds light on the role of gender in navigating life married to a person of a different color. Osuji compares black-white couples in Brazil and the United States, the two most populous post–slavery societies in the Western hemisphere. These settings, she argues, reveal the impact of contemporary race mixture on racial hierarchies and racial ideologies, both old and new.

An interracial couple gives an honest glimpse into how they’ve dealt with the tension of race in their relationship and their lives. When Tineka Smith and Alex Court first fell in love, neither were prepared for the disconnect between them when it came to race. As a Black American woman, Tineka struggled with the oppression and microaggressions she faced on a daily basis, and it took Alex, a White British man, a lot of soul-searching to see that his life-long expectations were skewed by his privilege. The couple’s struggles were amplified when the Black Lives Matter movement swept across the United States and the world. Mixed Up is their confessional. In a series of alternating chapters, Tineka and Alex share their deepest feelings and the lessons they’ve learned about race and privilege—from their childhoods to their education and workplace experiences to thoughts about their future children. While Tineka finds herself in the role of racial equality advocate in her own relationship, Alex learns what it means to be a true ally as a person—and a husband. In all its raw heartache, humor, and honesty, their story brings hope that there is a future in which interracial relationships and families can find love and acceptance. “An illuminating book that will challenge what you think you know about relationships, cultural diversity and race.” —Olivette Otele, historian and author of African Europeans “A must read book that will change the way we see mixed race couples and make us question our own entrenched beliefs.” —Melissa Fleming, award-winning author of A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea

When a Black, Indigenous, or racialized individual or relationship works with a sex therapist, a host of cultural circumstances can contribute to intimacy discord and sexual dysfunction. This collection brings together clinicians and educators who share their approaches, bridging sex therapy with a client’s relationship to their racial, cultural, and ethnic identity. This essential book aims to enhance therapists’ supervisory practices and clinical treatments when working with culturally diverse and marginalized populations, fostering greater understanding and awareness. Innovative tools that integrate the impacts of acculturation, minority status, intersectionality, and minority stress are discussed, with case studies, demonstrations, and critical questions included. This collection is a necessary read for anyone who is training to be or who is an established sex therapist, marriage and family therapist, relationship counselor, or sexuality educator and consultant.

While cross-cultural relations were once assumed to be inherently problematic, in recent years these couples have increased in both numbers and social acceptance, and there is now a growing awareness of how little we really know about them. Addressing this gap in our knowledge, this book presents 12 chapters focusing on cross-cultural couple formations (i.e., a partner from the U.S. and another from abroad). Highlighting both the struggles and successes of couples, this book challenges the principle of homogamy, helping the reader gain a deeper understanding and respect for intercultural couples. The chapters tackle a broad range of topics and issues, including systemic considerations of the phenomenon of cross-cultural couples, bilingual couples, interfaith relationships, struggles in such couple formations, different methods of approaching solutions, and the use of the internet to meet partners from diverse backgrounds.